


A Price to be Paid

by ThatRavenclawBitch



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Historical, F/M, Magic AU, Paranormal
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-14
Updated: 2015-10-13
Packaged: 2018-04-26 06:42:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4994188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatRavenclawBitch/pseuds/ThatRavenclawBitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From a tumblr prompt. Isabelle French and Rumford Gold are living in Salem, MA in 1692. Both are from completely different worlds, she a good Puritan and he a lonely outcast spinner with a secret talent. Despite the odds, they find themselves falling in love. But when Belle is accused of witchcraft, Rum must do everything in his power to prove her innocence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Price to be Paid

If there was one woman he was sure would never look his way, it was Isabelle French.

The only child of Magistrate Maurice French and apple of her father’s eye, Isabelle was a perfect Puritan daughter. They lived in one of the largest houses in town, sat on the front pew of the church every Sunday and showed charity to Salem’s poorest. She was also as beautiful as a spring sunrise, chestnut curls bound up in a bun at the nape of her neck but always seeming one step from escaping their coiffure, eyes as blue as the sea on a cloudless day, and a figure one couldn’t help but notice even beneath the many layers of her clothing and her father’s sharp glare.

Maurice French guarded his daughter closely, keeping her at his side at all times or at the very least under the constant guard of her companion, Mrs. Lucas.

No, there was no possible way a woman like that could ever notice Rumford Gold.

Until one day, she did.

Rumford was a spinner by trade, a talent passed on to him by his aunts who had raised him after his father’s disappearance. His mother, their sister, had passed when he was a small child, a fact Rumford always knew should make him melancholy though he had no real attachment to her, only a vague memory of a voice, soft hands cradling his cheeks. The only parents he’d ever known were Auntie Prudence and Auntie Margaret.

Being a boy with no father, raised by spinsters, had not engendered any love for him in the town of Salem. His short-lived marriage to Milah, a local farmer’s daughter, had gone no further in legitimizing him in the town’s eyes. Milah had run off only a few years into their wedded union, taking up with a naval officer and living as his kept woman in a port town. The various hardships of Rumford’s life had left the town wary of him as though being abandoned were his own fault. Clearly there was something unholy about a boy no one wanted.

The only light in his life had been his son, Bae, the one good thing to come from his short marriage.

But good things in Rumford’s life never seemed to last.

When Bae was only six he’d come down with a fever. Rumford stayed awake for three straight nights nursing his only child, but his symptoms only seemed to worsen.

Rumford remembered as a boy when his aunts, now long dead, would mix concoctions to help with passing ailments in the townspeople. From unmarried girls who found themselves in trouble to the common cold, Prudence and Margaret could fix anything. They’d taught him the basics, and left a wealth of knowledge behind them in neatly marked notebooks filled with the descriptions of various herbs and their properties. Rumford poured over Aunt Prudence’s tiny scrawl looking for an answer to Bae’s sickness when on the fourth night of agony, his eyes burning and mind sluggish from lack of sleep, he finally found it.

He hurried to mix the ingredients from his aunts’ stores, brewing a salve to spread on his son’s heated skin. As he smeared the thick paste across his boy’s tiny, wheezing, chest, a glow seemed to encompass Rumford’s hands, a feeling of light and warmth eking from him and into his son.

It was only then he realized spinning was not the only talent his aunts had passed on to him, what they truly were.

Bae awoke the next morning miraculously healed. His cheeks were rosy, his eyes clear, and skin cool to the touch. Rumford tried not to think about what exactly had happened the night before, blaming the feelings on lack of sleep. It had been a hallucination, nothing more.

But from that day on he could feel it thrumming beneath his skin, the power that called to him no matter how he tried to block it out, the word he didn’t dare utter aloud.

When his boy was killed by a runaway cart three months later, Rumford tried to tell himself it was a horrible accident. But deep down he knew the truth. All magic came with a price, and this was one he wasn’t prepared to pay.

He went about his life, his days fading to nothing more than an endless drudge without his boy. He ignored the tingling beneath his skin, the sometimes electric feeling he would get at the tips of his fingers, the crackle he could feel in the air. He would not use such a thing again. He had nothing left to lose, but for Bae’s sake, his magic would lie dormant.

He continued to spin though it no longer brought him peace the way it once had. He sold his thread on market days, the best quality in the region though the townspeople got away with paying him a pittance for his wares. He was orphaned, cuckolded, and childless. He was beneath the notice of anyone in town and they despised him.

Until one day a blue-eyed beauty stopped by his market stall and paid full price for his thread.

Isabelle French continued to visit him on market days, always paying full price and smiling at him as though he were someone worth smiling at, despite the scowl of Mrs. Lucas as she accompanied her on her errands. After a while she would ask him questions, first about his wool, his spinning wheel, his methods and later growing more personal. She asked him where he lived, why she never saw him at the church, if he liked to read.

When he answered her last question in the affirmative, she began to loan him books. Rumford would devour whatever she gave him even though most of it was of a religious bent he wasn’t keen on, and return it to her the next market day. Eventually he brought books of his own to lend to her, filled with knowledge on plants and their medicinal purposes. It was only a matter of time before Isabelle’s visits on market day became the highlight of his entire week. It was only a matter of time before he found himself completely and utterly smitten with the gentle soul who showed him kindness in a world that Rumford had long ago learned harbored no care for him.

But Rumford always knew her smiles would be short lived. That the light she shone on his otherwise barren life would one day end. He could never have her for his own. She deserved so much more than a wretch like he could ever give her. Even if he did find the courage to ask her father for her hand, even on the off chance that Isabelle felt the same for him, he knew he’d be rejected flat out. No, Belle, as he’d come to call her in his mind though he knew he didn’t have the right, would be married to some upstanding citizen. A man with wealth and influence who would be worthy of her rather than a man so reviled he was forced to sell his thread for a fraction of its worth, a man who might as well have killed his own child.

And finally, one day, she failed to turn up at his market stall at all. Despite knowing the day would come, Rumford couldn’t keep his heart from breaking as the shadows grew longer and the light faded and no Belle showed up, cheeks pink from the afternoon sun and arms filled with books. He craned his neck, trying to get a glimpse of her dark auburn curls or even the steel gray bun and crisp white bonnet of Mrs. Lucas. But Belle was gone, and she was never his to start with.

It was with a heavy heart that he made his way home to his cottage on the edge of town at the end of the day. It was early spring but the quickly fading daylight gave way to chill wind and Rumford was shaking by the time he’d reached his destination.

He stoked a fire in the hearth, sitting down before his wheel and hoping that spinning might bring him comfort, remind him of a time that he was truly happy. But his aunts were no longer making meat pies after a long day of work. There was no Bae playing with his wooden toys before the hearth. Rumford was alone. The creak of his wheel seemed to echo the creak of his bones, the weary sound that would follow him to the grave. There was no light in his life anymore.

The thought made him wonder, made him eager to try the thing that had haunted him for so many years. A small bit of magic wouldn’t cause any harm. And if it did, what was there to lose?

He closed his eyes, giving in to the sensation, the power that was always there behind the façade of a middle aged, malnourished spinner. He felt the heat rushing to his fingertips and when he opened his eyes, he was unsurprised to see the glow there. A bit more concentration, a focus on the bitter disappointment at not seeing Belle, had the glow coalescing into a tight ball of white blue heat sitting right above his palm. Rumford looked at it in wonder, the sheer beauty of the thing calling to him.

Then there was a knock on his cottage door and the ball of light flickered out immediately. Rumford started, rubbing his palms against the rough fabric of his breeches trying to contain the lingering feeling of the magic. Who would possibly be calling on him this late in the evening? Who would possibly be calling on him at all?

Warily he stood from his perch at the wheel, crossing the small sitting room and lingering before the front door for a long moment before there was another sharp knock.

Slowly he opened the cottage door, shocked to see a familiar face.

“Belle,” he gasped without thinking, throwing the door open wider. “Pardon me, Miss French,” he corrected himself.

Belle looked upset, tear tracks marring her beautiful face. She was half frozen from the cold and he ushered her in glancing around behind her for the sight of her companion. She appeared to be quite alone.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. Why would a beautiful young woman risk her reputation coming to visit him alone at night? What would the townspeople say if they knew she was associating with the likes of him? Perhaps she couldn’t make it to the market that day and needed thread. But surely she could have come at a more reasonable hour, and with her companion.

“George Gaston has asked for my hand in marriage,” she said, her eyes wide and searching. Rumford felt his stomach plummet. He’d known this moment would come, that she would be snatched away by someone younger, richer, better. But it didn’t explain why Belle was here, on his doorstep in the middle of the night, telling him this. Did she know how he felt about her? Had she risked her reputation coming here just to rub his face in it? That wasn’t like his Belle.

“It’s a good match,” he felt himself saying in a daze though every fiber of his being cried out for him to say that she couldn’t marry George, that she should marry him instead. “Mr. Gaston is everything you deserve.”

“But nothing I want,” she countered with a shake of her head. “My father wants me to accept him and I’ve done my best to be a good daughter to him but in this I cannot. I cannot marry someone I do not love, someone I could never love. George doesn’t believe women should read, that it could give us ideas and make us more susceptible to the devil. How am I to exist with such a husband?”

Rumford wasn’t sure what to say, her words were so unexpected. Was it possible she was coming to him for aid? He had no money, no way to help her get away from Salem and an unwanted betrothal, but he would give her anything she asked of him.

“Then you should plead with your father to allow you to refuse him,” he said. “He adores you. I’m sure he only thinks of your happiness.”

Belle shrugged, moving further into the small sitting room of his cottage. She trailed her fingers over his wheel, the wood creaking beneath her hand. It was an intimate touch, one that sent a shiver up Rumford’s spine. A voice in the back of his head whispered how well she looked here, how at home among his things. He pushed the voice away quickly, ignoring the tingle in his fingertips, the burning fire coursing in his veins that told him he could incinerate George Gaston and Maurice French and every other impediment to Belle’s happiness. To his happiness.

“Can you think of any other reason I shouldn’t marry him?” Belle asked, looking up from the wheel at Rumford expectantly.

He wasn’t sure what she wanted him to say to that. Rumford could think of several good reasons for why she shouldn’t marry George. He could think of several good reasons for why she shouldn’t marry anyone but him, but they were selfish reasons, ones he would never voice aloud.

“I think you deserve every happiness, Miss French,” he said diplomatically. “I wish you would do whatever gives you joy.”

She bit her lip at his words, little white teeth sinking in to plump pink flesh. The action was absent minded but almost carnal as she looked up at him with hooded eyes.

“I can think of one thing that would make me very happy,” she all but whispered, a fetching blush staining her cheeks.

“And what is that Miss French?” he asked, mesmerized as she walked closer to him, stopping just in front of him her eyes never leaving his.

“I wonder that you haven’t guessed.”

A moment later she had placed one delicate hand against his chest over his heart, her touch seeming to burn through the fabric of his shirt branding her hand print against his skin and marking him for all eternity. She leaned up hesitantly, stretching until she was on her tiptoes. Rumford was frozen in place, his brain unable to process that this wasn’t a dream and expecting to awake at any moment.

“If I’m mistaken in your regard for me,” she murmured, her breath warm against his lips, “please tell me now before I do something abominably stupid.”

“You are not mistaken,” he assured her breathily.  

And then she had pressed her petal soft lips to his, one perfect moment after a lifetime of tragedy. Rumford’s breath hitched at the contact, surprise and longing warring for dominance in his mind. A moment later, he gave in, kissing her back soundly, letting his hands stroke along her arms before settling on her waist. He could feel the heat of her, the lush curves hidden beneath the heavy woolen fabric of her dress.

Belle gripped his shirt tightly in one hand her other going up to tangle in the hair at the back of his neck, pulling him closer. She was innocent but seemed oh so willing. It was that thought that had Rumford pulling away, putting space between them. The cool air rushed in to the gap between their overheated bodies, clearing his head.

“We can’t do this,” he said with a shake of his head.

Belle looked slightly dazed, her lips swollen and eyes unfocused. “Why not?” she pleaded, trying to breach the gap between them once more. Rumford stepped back from her, away from temptation.

“Your reputation is compromised enough just being here,” he reasoned. “If anyone found out…”

Belle shook her head. “Mrs. Lucas may seem imposing but she wouldn’t give away my secrets. I should be getting back though. I’d hate to force her to lie to Papa.”

Rumford nodded his head dazedly, still processing what had happened between them.

“Do you have any objections to my feelings other than concern for my reputation?” she asked, her voice small and uncertain. As though he would reject her. As though anyone given the gift of Belle’s affections could trample such a precious thing.

“No,” he replied truthfully. “I…from the first moment I saw you in the marketplace I thought you the most bewitching woman I’d ever seen. I had not dared to hope you might return my affections.”

Belle blushed again, a beautiful sight and one he was happy to be the cause of. “Did you really think I had use for all that thread?” she said with a giggle. “It was simply an excuse to talk to you. You’re unlike any other man I’ve ever met. When my father told me tonight that I must marry another I knew I couldn’t do it. Not as long as there was a chance for us. And now I know there is.”

Her words were like a cold bucket of ice water thrown over his head. There was no chance for them, no matter how they felt. He was a social outcast, poor with no connections and no hope for a better future. If she married George, Belle would have everything.

“I can offer you nothing but darkness,” he said reluctantly, shaking his head. “I’ve no money, no prospects. You deserve so much better than me, Miss French.”

“Belle,” she corrected him. “I liked it when you called me Belle.”

He only nodded in response.

“Meet me tomorrow night in the woods near the old well,” she continued. “If you don’t come, I’ll have your answer. But if you do – well, then we’ll see what happens. For no one decides our fate but us.”

She blushed again and Rumford thought he could no more refuse to meet her than he could refuse to draw breath. He knew he would see her tomorrow night. And he knew he would drag her down with him. He was a selfish creature.

Belle reached up on her tiptoes, placing another chaste, gentle kiss to his lips. And then she was gone as quickly as she had come leaving him hopeful and terrified by turns.

The next evening came quickly and Rumford found himself standing by the old well not long after nightfall. For a moment he wondered if Belle had chosen not to come. Perhaps after 24 hours to think on things she’d realized how imprudent it would be to spend any time with him at all. Perhaps she’d decided to appease her father and marry George Gaston. Or perhaps she’d simply made the smart decision. Women were being accused of witchcraft on a weekly basis these days. Any behavior out of the ordinary was looked on as suspect. Surely Belle was protected by her father’s rank and the good opinion of the town, but paranoia made people do terrible things.

It didn’t escape Rumford’s notice that Belle meeting an actual magic wielder in the woods at night was far more suspect than anything the innocent women accused of such things had done.

He rubbed his hands together, warding off the cold night air and beginning to rethink coming here in the first place. It was for the best if she didn’t come. He shouldn’t encourage her no matter how his own heart cried out for her.

He clutched his threadbare cloak closer around his shoulders and turned in the direction of town only to see Belle’s smiling face emerging from the trees. He let out a breath he didn’t even realize he’d been holding at the sight of her, a nervous feeling in his stomach abating at nothing more than her presence.

“Rumford,” her sweet voice rang out through the wood. “You came.”

“Aye,” he agreed, feeling sluggish and stupid. She was so beautiful, so good, so much better than a man like him deserved. If only he had something more, something that would make him worthy of her.

“I’m glad,” she said, her eyes shining with unshed tears. She moved toward him, setting down her lantern at the base of the well and throwing her arms around his neck.

His arms came up to wrap around her back, holding her close and breathing in the scent of her, of roses and fresh air and spring days. Even now he knew this was temporary.

“I told my father I wouldn’t marry George,” she said, her voice muffled against his shoulder.

“And what did he say?”

“He said I was mistaken in thinking I had a choice in the matter,” she said, pulling away from him and looking up at him with a sad smile. “Poor Papa, I don’t think he’s used to me telling him no. I think he was rather shocked.”

“Then what are we to do?” he asked, holding her at arms length. “We shouldn’t be here together especially if you’re betrothed to another.”

“We’re not to be married until June,” Belle said. “My father wants to give us time to court hoping I’ll fall in love with George but I know that can never happen. Not when my heart belongs so firmly to another.”

“Oh, Belle,” he sighed, cupping her cheek with one calloused hand. Belle leaned in to his touch, her skin warm and soft beneath his palm.

“Your Belle,” she said with a sad smile. “Yours and yours alone.”

He kissed her at that, though he knew he shouldn’t. He couldn’t help himself. She melted against him, clutching on to his shoulders as he supported her weight. Her mouth opened beneath his and he plundered it with his tongue, tasting the sweetness of her. A groan was ripped from his throat and he tightened his grip around her waist.

Three months. They had three months until she would be married to another. Three months until she would be Gaston’s wife. This was only temporary, but he would hold on with both hands until the end came. He knew he would be destroyed at losing her. He knew he couldn’t hope to survive it. But with Belle’s lips against his and her fingers twisting in his hair, none of that mattered. They were here in this moment together.

He felt himself hardening in his trousers, the feel of Belle against him too much to take. It had been so long, ages, since he’d been with a woman. He pulled away from her to spare her sensibilities, his hands firmly on her hips so she couldn’t follow.

“Where does your father think you are now?” he asked, scrambling for something to say.

“A prayer meeting,” she said with a wry twist of her lips. And it was that, that little show of the wicked sense of humor buried beneath the dutiful daughter façade, the Puritanical piousness, that shattered his control.

He seized her hips, pulling her back against him and capturing her mouth once more. He barely noticed the rush of magic to his fingertips amid the other sensations of his body. As he lowered Belle to the forest floor, his cloak spread out beneath her, neither of them paid attention to the little swirls of light that emitted from Rumford’s hands, twisting and dancing around their half clothed bodies, illuminating and warming the air around the well.

And when Belle cried out to God with a heathen between her thighs, the light shattered in a million sparks raining down around them and burning out before they touched the ground.

* * *

The next market day, Rumford Gold headed in to town with a spring in his step. He had pulled stray leaves from Belle’s hair, kissing her again before sending her home to her father. He knew he was destined for hell but it seemed hard to care about the state of his soul when Belle loved him.

The magic had started coming easier to him, as though Belle’s presence made it even harder to keep at bay. He wouldn’t use it though. Not now that he had something to lose. The fervor of the religious in town would have him imprisoned as a witch regardless of the fact that Rumford had no thought for the devil. His magic was something innate, born into him. It scared him and fascinated him by turns. But he knew it could never be common knowledge. Perhaps he could tell Belle the next time they met in the woods. She would surely understand and not think him wicked.

Belle passed his stall, her eyes lighting up, a knowing smile crossing her lips. Rumford looked up at her from beneath his hair, a shy smile on his own face before Mrs. Lucas was rushing her off to the other side of the square.

But the glimpse of her was enough to keep him going. They had agreed to meet again in their spot every Sunday evening when Belle’s father thought she was at prayers with Mrs. Lucas and her granddaughter. The thought of once again having Belle’s company to himself was enough to make the days without her bearable.

He was in love with her, and she loved him in return. The wedding in June was a specter he didn’t want to think about. Perhaps they could run away together, leave Salem altogether before she was forced to marry George. Perhaps they could have a life together.

And then all Rumford’s hopes disintegrated with a single sentence screamed out in the afternoon sun.

A girl rushed out of a nearby building, eyes wild and finger pointing out accusingly. Regina Mills, Rumford recognized, a usually sweet girl with an absolutely terrifying mother.

“I saw Isabelle French cavorting with the devil in the woods on Sunday evening!” the girl’s voice rang out across the square, her finger finding Belle’s shocked face as the crowd parted around her.

All magic came with a price, even something as harmless as a dancing ball of light.

 


End file.
